


Hiraeth

by zigostia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Afterlife, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 08:14:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15239163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zigostia/pseuds/zigostia
Summary: It’s poetry, Sherlock thinks. Sweet stanzas sung softly into his skin.





	Hiraeth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [allsovacant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/allsovacant/gifts).



> I thank you for being one of my kindest and best readers. Your covers have brightened my day on countless occasions.
> 
> This is an unofficial continuation of a fic I wrote a while back, [Cicatrize,](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13884948) though it can be read as a standalone. 
> 
> Leev, my dear—I hope this is somewhat healing.

Sherlock wakes up, and is immediately bombarded with a dozen and one ways that things have changed.

He looks down at his hands. Pale, thin fingers twisting together. Turn them over, rub the pads of index and thumb: smooth and absent from calluses.

His hands travel up to his hair and twine into long, tumbling curls, tousled atop his head.

He looks down. He is wearing his Belstaff with the collar turned up against the wind. A navy wool scarf tickles his jaw.

He looks around. The Thames is fierce and rebellious on this strange spring evening. It lands a spray on his cheeks as he leans against the railing, peers out at the Eye and the clock tower chiming seven o’clock. The seemingly-constant drizzle of foggy rain chills his neck. Waterloo Bridge is solid beneath his feet.

His mind worries, whirrs, and whistles like a broken tea kettle.

London.

Impossibly, irrationally, miraculously, he is in London.

Which means—

From his left, someone calls his name, and

_(that voice)_

it is suddenly very hard to breathe. The air is a weighted thing, its thousand tons pressing down on his chest and restricting the airflow in his throat, pinhole-tight.

He turns, and sees a man running towards him, a short man, a blond man, a man with a military haircut and a handed-down phone, a tremor in his left hand as he holds his cane, because he isn’t haunted by the war—he misses it.

And now it has returned.

“You didn’t do it yourself,” John says, before he’s even finished walking. “Christ, Sherlock, tell me you didn’t do it yourself.”

Sherlock opens his mouth. He must be in shock, he decides—the thought is strangely comforting, and offsets the blind chaos that has surged into an uproar in his mind.

“No,” he finally says. “It was—organ failure, I’m almost certain. Heart or liver.”

John’s features relax, but worry remains evident in the tightness of the corners of his lips.

“All those cigarettes,” he murmurs, “and those drugs, Sherlock, I told you—” He breaks off.

Sherlock stays silent.

He does not say what he wants to say, which is _I can see you now. I can talk to you. I can hear you._

He does not say, _I missed you._

He does not say, _Thirty years was too much._

He does not say, _Everything was dull without you._

He does not say, _Bees were boring without you._

He does not say, _I love you. I never told you. I need to tell you now._

Because, in the face of sentiment, Sherlock Holmes is fighting with a double-edged sword, and it is obvious who is winning.

Because, when Sherlock Holmes does not know what to do, he resorts to defence.

“You left me,” he whispers.

John stills.

Sherlock continues. “You knew—you saw the bullet. You’re a soldier, you must’ve seen its trajectory, would’ve known its damage. And you went for it anyway.”

John’s lips tighten as something in his eyes hardens.

“I had to,” he says simply. “It’s not a matter of yes or no, Sherlock, I—I _had_ to do it, there was nothing else I could’ve done.”

“You could’ve stayed,” Sherlock says, “and let me take the bullet like I deserved.”

“Don’t,” John says, his eyes flashing an edge of warning. “Don’t say that.”

“No.” Sherlock’s voice grows louder, more insistent. “I should’ve. Everything leading up to that moment was my fault, and— _I_ should’ve gotten shot, _I_ should’ve bled all over the carpet, and _I_ should’ve _died—”_

“Shut up.” John’s voice is quiet, soft, and the lethalness of it spurs Sherlock into an immediate silence.

“You know what?” John’s voice is so soft it’s almost a whisper, a rumbling breath, sending shivers across Sherlock’s skin. “Not this time. _You—”_ His eyes pierce into Sherlock’s— “don’t get to tell me what to do. Not this time, hm?” He smiles; thin, dangerous, deadly. “Because I get to do what I want. Alright? And I wanted to save you, Sherlock. And I did.”

“You didn’t _save_ me, John,” Sherlock says. “You left me. That’s not heroic, that’s _selfish.”_

“Well then,” John says, “I guess I’m selfish, yeah? That I didn’t want to see you go before me. That I was afraid—afraid of being left alone. Again.” His gaze feels like a dagger of blue fire. “Maybe I’ve felt that pain already, maybe I already know that I couldn’t possibly go through that kind of heartbreak twice in a lifetime.” His eyes are dark as he smiles again, sardonic. “So I’m selfish. So maybe I am. So what?”

“No,” Sherlock says empathetically, the word spat, split, and cracking in the middle. “You left me, John. I couldn’t—” He sucks in a sharp breath through his nose, trying to keep his breathing under control (if not his heart). “Do you understand the severity of your actions?” _(Do you know what you’ve done to me?)_

“Yes, I do, because, if you keep forgetting, I thought you were dead for two fucking years—”

“I had to defeat Moriarty—”

“I had to save your life—”

“You could’ve saved yourself and gotten a whole lot more done—”

“I don’t care, Sherlock! I don’t care what you say or what you do but I'm going to choose you over me—”

“You’re right, you _are_ selfish—”

“Says the man who pretended to be dead for two years—”

_“Well, you’re the one who actually died for real!”_

John is stunned into a silence. Then, his mouth slowly draws upwards. He lets out a dry, disbelieving laugh.

“You bastard,” he says, as tears trail their way down his cheeks. “You complete fucking prat.”

Sherlock pauses, and then dares a quirk of the corner of his lips. He blinks, and feels something hot and wet roll down his face.

“I mean,” he murmurs, “I suppose I’ve died for real this time as well.”

“So we’re even,” John mutters.

“I guess we are,” Sherlock says. He raises his hand and rests his palm against John’s cheeks; lightly swipes his thumb underneath his eyes, wiping the tears.

“I’m sorry,” he says simply.

“It’s—fine,” John says, after a pause. He shakes his head slightly. “Me, as well. I—yeah.”

Sherlock drops his hand. Absently runs a finger over his lips. “Well, now that that’s sorted. Mind telling me where exactly we are?”

John purses his lips. “I’ve been asking myself that for as long as I can remember being here for. Which, I’m not sure either—time is difficult, here. My best guess is something like purgatory, I suppose.”

“Too bad for heaven and too good for hell,” Sherlock allocates.

John smiles. “Isn’t that just us. I know it sounds insane.”

“When you eliminate the impossible,” Sherlock begins, but is interrupted by John’s eye roll.

“Don’t start,” he says.

Sherlock sighs. “Even in death, my genius goes largely unappreciated.”

And they really shouldn't laugh, but they do, because they’re _them_ and that’s what they do. And it feels good. And it feels _right._

(And isn’t that what really matters?)

John shakes his head, smile fading into something more solemn. His eyes comb over Sherlock’s figure, taking in everything with a gaze that Sherlock is more used to being on the giving side than the receiving. It makes him want to close his eyes, but he finds himself unable to look away.

“Jesus,” John utters plainly. When he speaks, his voice is rough with disbelief. “Jesus—Christ, Sherlock, I can’t believe—” As if propelled, as if dragged and torn in by an insurmountable force, he stumbles forward towards Sherlock, his arms reaching and coming around, and buries his face into his chest.

When he is held, John Watson is a solid bundle of thrumming warmth and emotion and life; when Sherlock holds him, he feels all of it (sunshine and starlight and moonbeams and flames) steadily trickling through his veins

—and it feels like a drug, it’s so much worse than a drug; it’s like holding a matchstick to a forest fire, a firework to a supernova—and Sherlock is a dust-grey moth, irrevocably drawn to the light.

“Everything was dull without you,” Sherlock mumbles into John’s hair (it smells like cheap shampoo and aftershave). “The world was washed-out. Monochromatic.”

“Oh, Sherlock,” John murmurs, lips against Sherlock’s collarbone, where a spot of heat blossoms and spreads. “But you didn’t do it yourself.”

“No,” Sherlock says, and he is telling the truth.

John lets out a deep breath that Sherlock can feel against his chest. “Good. Good, Sherlock.”

“Almost—a few times, I—” Sherlock shuts his eyes and feels a tremor rack through his spine, tingling in his fingertips. “Almost,” he says. “Bad days.”

“Danger nights,” John says. “But you made it.” His voice drops to a whisper. “You made it, Sherlock. God—you’re wonderful, you’re brilliant, you’re extraordinary.”

It’s poetry, Sherlock thinks. Sweet stanzas sung softly into his skin.

He drops his chin to rest atop John’s head. His arms are shaking—or his whole body—or the bundle of fire in his arms—or the world.

John does not move. He is holding Sherlock tightly, so tightly, but his arms tremble and his shoulder shake, like Sherlock is expensive china and eggshell ceramic, a fragile and delicate thing that will flit away and shatter at the slightest misneach.

And perhaps, Sherlock thinks, he is right. And perhaps, he thinks, it is for naught.

Sherlock is still falling apart. He is breaking to pieces, cracks and chips in the walls he’s painstakingly built over so many years. It takes John Watson less than a second to destroy it all, and Sherlock thinks it is fitting.

It’s always been him, after all.

Sherlock wants to say—

There’s so much he wants to say.

He says it, now.

Into John’s chest, his periwinkle blue jumper that smells of tea and marmalade, and it sounds a little like a sob and little bit like a laugh, it sounds like _I missed you_ and a little like _I can’t believe you’re here_ and a little bit like _I love you._

John hushes him, sweeps a hand down his spine and strokes a hand through his hair.

“I know,” he murmurs. “It’s OK, darling, I know.”

“John,” Sherlock says, and it sounds like a prayer.

“Sherlock,” John answers. It sounds like the sweetest sin, like sipped sugar on his tongue.

And it’s not enough, so Sherlock pulls away to look him in the eye, those nebula eyes (star nurseries) and inside them he can see them all, twinkling in the speckles of indigo irises.

And he says it.

And John smiles.

And he says it back.

Again.

And again.

And when their lips find each other, it sears.

He was wrong, Sherlock realizes. John is not destruction—he is a catalyst. He is a supernova, creating new from the old, beauty from ashes.

And as they pull away, if only to hold each other closer, Sherlock shatters, melts, melds, and heals.

Sherlock looks at John. John looks at Sherlock.

And for the first time in thirty years, Sherlock feels whole again.

They turn, together, and look across the bridge at the cityscape of London. Their hands find each other, fingers intertwined over the railing. The rain falls in speckles on the back of their necks.

“What now?” Sherlock asks.

“Anything,” John replies. “Everything.”

“And—and after?” Sherlock swallows. “After all this. What then?”

John hums.

“We could be reborn,” he suggests. “Reincarnations and all that. Don’t scoff, you know it’s a possibility.”

“Possible but not probable.”

“Is any of this probable, though?”

“Probably not,” Sherlock admits, and grins. “If it’s true, maybe I’ll be the antagonist this time. London wouldn’t stand a chance. Sherlock Holmes, consulting criminal.”

John laughs. “And me, the army doctor gone crooked.”

“You mean we’ll still meet?” Sherlock says, words escaping without further filter.

John turns his head to face him. His smile has gone tilted and a little bit askew in the gorgeous way it does when he’s confused.

“Of course,” he says, as if it were obvious. “Of course we’ll still meet, Sherlock, we’re _us._ You can’t have one without the other.”

“You can’t,” Sherlock says. His tone stumbles on the edge of question against affirmation.

“No,” John says. “You found me, and you saved me. And then I saved you. And that’s how it’s supposed to be. Us, saving each other.” His tone is plain, simple, factual. “It will always be like this, Sherlock, and no matter where we end up, who or what we are, I promise that this will never change.”

Oh, Sherlock thinks, and feels something solid pulse inside his chest, spilling embers, spreading warmth throughout his body.

(His heart.)

Something has changed in the atmosphere around them, a shift in the air.

Sherlock looks up. The clouds have lightened in colour, from ashy grey to a cream-coloured pink as the sun slowly makes its surrender.

And as he watches, the rain lightens from a flurry to a drizzle, then trickles away to nothingness.

John looks up at the sky, his eyes wide.

“It stopped raining,” he says. “It _never_ stops raining. That’s impossible.”

He pauses, then. Turns to Sherlock, who is smiling so hard he is afraid he will burst.

John makes a noise in his throat, a cross between a giggle and a groan. “Oh, so I guess you can control the weather too, now.”

Sherlock grins. John shakes his head and sighs.

“Come on,” he says. “Let’s go home.”

Home, Sherlock thinks. His mind casts an image of a lazy Sussex cottage, rows upon rows of beehives. A violin case on the top of the cupboard, covered with a thick layer of dust. A sun-faded armchair by the lake. Lovely, it was. Truly. And—

_Lonely._

And then he feels a thrumming in his veins. His heart is pounding like a drum against his ribs, and it etches another image, one that takes over the previous.

A black cab pulls up on a busy London street. A knocker is tilted to the side. He walks seventeen steps and opens the door to a cluttered table of hazardous substances, a skull on a mantle. There are two cups of tea on the counter and a half-eaten tray of home baked biscuits, a filled crossword from the paper with a pen lying on the left hand side. Bullet holes in the wall, violin on the coffee table.

And there, coming down the stairs. He is glowing, radiating light in waves.

(He is beautiful. He is everything. He is incandescent.)

John smiles at him. “Baker Street, of course,” he says.

_Of course._

John turns around to leave (going home). He takes a step.

“Wait,” Sherlock blurts.

John stops, turns back, hums in prompt.

“How do I know…” His words come hesitant, halting. “How do I know this is real? That it isn’t just—all in my head?”

John tilts his head.

“Well, of course it’s all in your head,” he says, “but why on Earth does that make it any less real?”

He offers a small, sweet smile, then steps back in, leaning up on his tiptoes to press a kiss to the corner of Sherlock’s lips.

“Now,” he says, “let’s go home.” He turns once more. His steps are even and sure on the panels of the bridge, and Sherlock notices fleetingly that his cane has disappeared.

Sherlock turns his gaze to the horizon; the clock tower and the Eye. He looks back to the bridge and watches him walk for another moment.

Then, he smiles, and follows.

**Author's Note:**

> "Of course it's all in your head, but why on Earth does that mean it's not real?" is a quote from Harry Potter.


End file.
